


Fighting for a Reason that We Can't Ignore

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [87]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angry John, Epic Bromance, Gen, Happy Ending, Misunderstandings, Sherlock Gets It Wrong, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, but we knew that, he tried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 23:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1567385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John’s argument from chapter 3 of We Think It’s Love, Love, Love, and the conversation and events between Sherlock and Nirupa afterwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fighting for a Reason that We Can't Ignore

**Author's Note:**

> The title is also a lyric from Leah Haywood's We Think It's Love. I wrote this at the same time as the relevant chapter of that story so that I knew what Mary and Nirupa observed from their window.
> 
> Sorry about the formatting issues earlier. I think it's all fixed now.

John marched down the pavement towards Mary and Nirupa's flat, furiously ignoring the squelching of his wet shoes, the chafing of his thighs and the unpleasant, marshy, fishy stink wafting from his body.

“John!” Sherlock strode after him, but John had fury lending him speed, and Sherlock never quite caught up. “John, you’re being an idiot!”

“Idiot? **_Me_**?” John spun on his heels and delivered a steely glare that stopped Sherlock in his tracks. If John’s body had been weaponised, his jabbing finger might have burnt Sherlock to cinders where he stood. “Let me give you a run-down of the stupid tally, Sherlock. _One_ , you don’t tell me where we’re going; _two_ , you let me go unarmed; _three_ , you fail to mention the _radioactive fucking golf ball_.”

“On the plus side,” said Sherlock, attempting humour, “That volley with the crowbar to knock it back into the lead-lined shipping container was impressive. I’m sure Mycroft can get you a membership to his golf club based on the performance.”

“ _Four,_ ” snarled John, “You nearly get yourself _shot_ and I’ve fucking _told_ you about ducking when I say duck, you arse. _Five_ , why the fuck did you tell me to jump onto the barge if you knew I would end up in the fucking _Thames_? _**Again?"**_

“It was the fastest way to get you out of the line of fire, John. Chapworth had a _spear_.”

“ _Six_ , why can’t you just yell _duck_ like _normal fucking people_?”

“This isn’t really about the case,” said Sherlock stiffly, “You’re still angry about Mary.”

John stood there on the street doing a kind of dance of apoplectic rage, fists waving, shoulders twisted, knees bent as though about to launch a bodily attack on the source of his ire, disbelief and fury vying for the supremacy of the landscape of his expressive face.

“ _Of course I’m still angry about what you did to Mary!_ You have so much stupid on your side of the ledger I can’t believe you can still remember how to fucking _walk_ without falling over. _Testing her._ Oh my god, Sherlock, you are _unbelievable_.”

“Your previous girlfriends…”

“Mary is nothing _like_ my previous girlfriends. Don’t bring my previous girlfriends into this. In fact, never talk about any of my girlfriends ever again. You _prat_. Mary Morstan is the best thing to have come into my life, after you, and I have _told_ you that, and you treat her like some kind of _experiment_. Like she’s some kind of of of of of…” John was starting to sort of foam at the mouth now, “ _Secret assassin. **What the fuck is wrong with you?**_ ”

“That’s not what I’m doing, “ protested Sherlock, and he had a look on his face that suggested he had no idea how he’d managed to get things so badly wrong, or why John was still so ferociously upset with him. He looked like he was struggling desperately to work out what to say to fix it.

“Then tell me, Sherlock. Tell me what the fuck you are doing, _testing_ Mary? **Fuck.** ”

" _You’ve been through enough_ ,” Sherlock blurted out, and then suddenly drew himself up tall and stony-faced. He snapped his suit coat close around him, did up the button, shot his cuffs and tried to look haughty.

John stood dripping river water on the footpath, his head tilted and chin thrust out belligerently. “What? What was that?” he said, tone low like it could be when John was dangerous, but there was confusion in it too.

Sherlock drew a breath, but since he’d finally said something to make John stop shouting, he thought it best to continue, awkward as it was.

“You… I…”

Well, as soon as he could work out what words to use. Perhaps he should just open his mouth and see what happened. It had got him into this mess; it might just get him out of it.

“Your previous girlfriends…”

“Sherlock.” The warning tone was evident.

“Let me finish. Your previous girlfriends were often superficial, mundane, conservative and more likely to offer you ultimatums than support you in your work. They didn’t make you _happy_ , John.”

“You didn’t often give them a chance.”

“You didn’t make them happy either.”

John only scowled, because that much was certainly true.

“Sexually satisfied, of course, but not happy.” added Sherlock, thinking a compliment about now might help. It didn’t. John’s expression was now both puzzled and impatient.

“And then I…went Away.” Sherlock hated talking about that. He hated it with a passion. He hated even thinking about it. “Your field was clear and you didn’t date. You knew within a relatively short period that I was alive, so there was no real need for a mourning period, and yet you didn’t date.”

“So…” John looked like he was trying to think of how to continue the sentence. He hated talking about the year Away as well. “So what has that got to do with…?”

“You were _miserable_ ,” Sherlock said, exasperated and not very happy himself, “You were… I made you…” Sherlock looked down to examine his hands, turned them over as though the right words lay in his palms. “I did what had to be done. Moriarty left me no choice. I’d do it again if I must. Suffer it all again. Too much was at stake. I had to go.”

Finally, Sherlock looked up so that he could see precisely why John was so utterly still and silent. John’s whole stance had changed, the belligerence gone, his expression now filled with compassion. And grief. The last thing Sherlock had intended, but it illustrated his point.

“But I am not the only one who suffered,” Sherlock continued quietly. “You were miserable. You didn’t have a partner during my whole absence. You never even went looking.”

John swallowed. “Sherlock, how on earth could I have gone _dating_ while you were out there, for our sake, with no-one at your back? Who could possibly have been more important to me than you, when I knew you were out there alone?”

“So even absent, I ruined your love life.” Sherlock smiled ruefully.

“Sherlock…”

“You’ve had enough misery, John. You’d had enough of it before you met me, and I gave you more of it anyway. Not by choice, but there you are. You have new nightmares, a gift from me, which I would take back if I knew how. And into your life comes this woman, who seems to be perfect for you, and I…” Sherlock blinked rapidly and drew a breath, realising now that he was articulating it, how wrong-headed he had been. Nothing for it but to go on now, though.

“I wanted to make sure she wouldn’t... wouldn't break your heart. That she really would be who you need. Not like those others who saw you as a man in need of rescuing. A reclamation project. Someone they could… _alter to fit_.” His contempt for those women, all blind to John’s existing excellence, was expressed in biting consonants.

Then Sherlock clamped his mouth shut and clenched his teeth and waited for the John-rocket to blow up again.

Instead, John shook his head with a slow smile. “You really didn’t like my other girlfriends, did you?”

“Neither did you, much. Considering how often you actually not only left your phone on but _answered_ it."

John sighed but didn’t reply, by which Sherlock knew that John knew he was right.

“You don’t need fixing,” said Sherlock angrily.

“Well, not since _you_ fixed me.” Sherlock frowned, but John was smiling. A bit sheepishly, true. But smiling. “Twice, actually,” continued John. “When you invited me to go chasing that bloody cabbie, and then when you finally came home. So no. I’m nobody’s reclamation project any more.”

“You just needed a purpose,” said Sherlock, surprisingly modestly.

"I did. And yeah, I was miserable, but that’s not your fault. We’re laying all of that at that mad fucker Jim Moriarty’s feet, all right?”

Sherlock blinked. “All right,” he agreed warily.

“This is a whole new subset of stupid from you,” said John, but his tone was affectionate now, “But I appreciate that you thought you were looking out for me.

” “You… do?”

“Daft beggar. Come here.” John strode forward and wrapped his arms around Sherlock’s shoulders and Sherlock, grateful for the reprieve, hugged John back.

“You stink of low tide,” Sherlock mumbled into John’s soggy shoulder.

“Your suit is ruined,” John replied mildly, then started to giggle. Evilly.

“You utter bastard,” said Sherlock, properly aware now that his clothes were soaking up a lot of excess water and becoming smeared with smelly slime. But he didn’t let go. Instead, he started to laugh too, and the pair of them clung to each other, giggling, for a moment.

At last John stood back, grinning, and squeezed Sherlock’s shoulder.

“Mary’s not trying to alter me to fit, Sherlock. I think we fit already.”

“Yes. I can see that now.”

“Good. And… I mean, it was a terrible way to do it, and please don’t ever do it again. But thanks for trying to look out for me.”

Sherlock nodded and took a moment to straighten his now dishevelled suit. John made a brief attempt at his own clothes but gave it up as a bad job. The best he could really hope for now was to be hosed down somewhere and sent home in the back of someone’s van.

“Shall we, then?” John said with a sigh.

“It’s what we came for.” Sherlock pressed the buzzer for Mary and Nirupa’s flat. It took someone an oddly long time to answer. (Sherlock frowned up at their second storey window and made a mental note.)

“Hello?” Nirupa sounded like she had been laughing. “Sherlock Holmes,” said Sherlock in his most official voice, “I need to consult with you, Dr D’Souza, on a piece of evidence.”

“Come on up.”

Sherlock seized the door handle as the release mechanism sounded, but John put a quelling hand on his arm and pressed the speaker button again.

“Ah, Rupe, we’re not really fit for company right now. Took a dunking in the river, I’m afraid, and we’re a bit rank. Might be best to meet out here.”

“Okay. We’ll be right down.”

Sherlock regarded John as though he were the idiot child. “You have passed up an excellent opportunity to garner Mary’s sympathy for your waterlogged state.”

“I have passed up an opportunity to go into her home smelling of rotting fish, you mean. I know what I’m about, Sherlock. Give me some credit.”

“Ah, you think your attempt at chivalry will gain you favour.”

“I need to make up to her for my best mate being the world’s most ludicrous wingman.”

Sherlock raised an offended eyebrow at him. John smirked.

The door opened, and Nirupa and Mary stood there in the foyer. Nirupa stepped smartly out onto the street. “How can I help?”

“You poor thing!” Mary exclaimed and grabbed John by the wrist to bring him inside, “You can’t go about London looking like you washed up in the last flood. Come clean up while the geniuses are consulting.”

And without a backward glance, John cheerfully let Mary tow him solicitously inside and left Sherlock and Nirupa to their own devices.

Sherlock brought a bizarre charm made of feathers, bone and string out of his pocket. “Found at the latest crime scene. And yes, those are human teeth. Also human finger bones. Other evidence suggests the perpetrator is from the Andaman Islands, practising some kind of gruesome animism…”

“That’s not animist and it's not Andaman,” asserted Nirupa, “Not even close.”

“What is it, then?”

“Fake,” she said, “But you knew that.”

They fell into step as they strolled away from the flat by unspoken agreement.

“I suspected as much. A rather clumsy attempt at misdirection, even though the teeth are real enough.”

Nirupa peered at the ugly talisman. “This one has a filling in it.”

“Yes, and rather a recent one too. The chances of its owner being alive are quite slender.” The two of them headed towards a café down the street.

“Are those the filling owner’s finger bones as well?”

“It’s likely, though not certain. You noticed they’d been recently cleaned of flesh, then.”

“Yes.” Nirupa wrinkled her nose. “They missed a bit. And those feathers are from…?”

“A Hyde Park pigeon.”

“You can tell the Hyde Park ones apart from other pigeons?”

“From the scent, some of the markings - and the fact that four pigeons were last week found in a shallow grave in a flower bed. Their necks had been wrung and their wings had been crudely plucked.”

“Whoever made it,” said Nirupa, grimacing at the description, “was making a lazy, trite reference to a vague and racist developing-country type 'witchcraft', without a scrap of research. Except perhaps a terrible horror film.”

“They were probably too busy selling secrets to enemy states and carving up their rivals with a scimitar to bother with the research.”

“Perhaps they didn’t care about the research,” suggested Nirupa,"Or really liked The Blair Witch Project." At Sherlock's puzzled look, she added, "An odd cult horror film. It made me motion sick. Mary thought it was funny."

Sherlock suddenly grinned at her like she’d said something clever. “Interesting. and those pigeons were killed several days ago. This talisman wasn't meant for us, after all. A horror film reference, however. That might help.” He took a photo of the talisman and emailed it to a contact he had in the film industry.

Sherlock was politely but firmly refused entrance to the café when they arrived, on account of the smell now adhering to his suit. With a huff of indignation, he dropped into a chair at an outside table and Nirupa went inside to order.

The queue was long. Sherlock estimated he had perhaps ten minutes before she’d be back. He took out his phone and wrote a text.

He deleted it.

He rewrote it.

He deleted it.

He wrote it a final time and sent it - _do not hurt him_ \- and then hissed a rebuke at himself and glared at his phone as though it were to blame.

And then he sent a second text after it. _Please._

If anything, that had been a worse idea. What was _wrong_ with him?

His phone rang. _Damn_.

“Mary.” Well, no point pretending he didn’t know who it was.

The conversation was short. And fruitful. And offered new perspectives. Viewing the situation as the gaining of an engineer and an anthropoligist rather than the potential for John to be exposed to harm was...quite useful. He considered the idea that Mary was indeed perhaps good enough for John. Not that he’d ever say that out loud to John. No. Sherlock knew he was a bit thick about John’s romantic relationships sometimes, but he had at least worked out to not say something like that to John.

Probably.

Nirupa returned, set down two cups of coffee and took a seat opposite him as he put the phone away.

“Mary was hoping for at least three hours with John,” Nirupa said conversationally. “If it can be managed. We know you’re on a case, obviously. But if you can spare him, I’m sure they’d appreciate it. I can come with you, if you need an assistant.”

Sherlock took a sip of his coffee. Just the way he liked it. D’Souza had been paying attention. And had been useful, and quick to follow his lead when it came to getting Mary and John together for some private time. More uses than cultural expertise, then. And, rather surprisingly, Sherlock found he enjoyed her company.

“They can have two,” he said, “John would prefer four, but he can’t have everything.”

As it happened, Nirupa took another look at the talisman, identified the style of knots in the string as that used in complicated Nigerian hairstyling, and went with Sherlock to speak to a hairdresser, the hairdresser’s best client and a Nigerian born chef who owed Sherlock a favour. The movie contact emailed the name of a set dresser in reply to the earlier message.

The connections led them to a boat shed in a rowing club. Sherlock nabbed the killer (a merchant banker from Kensington) and only got punched in the ribs twice for his pains. Nirupa found him some frozen vegetables to use as ice packs while a team of black-suited men arrived in dark cars to take the traitor/kidnapper/killer into custody, and then Sherlock took Nirupa to Angelo’s for dinner.

John and Mary got their four hours and more.

What’s more, Sherlock was wrong. John, it turned out, really could have everything. As could Mary, and Nirupa, and Sherlock too. And it was strange and unconventional and sometimes took extra effort, but at least two of the four were quite smart at any given time on a regular basis, and the decades brought friendship, companionship, joy and a daughter.

So all in all, it was a very fine romance indeed.


End file.
